3 year old locked outside of nursery

Finnley Fuge was locked out of his nursery for 15 minutes, only to be discovered by his mother when she arrived to collect him.

Staff at Plasmarl Primary School’s nursery, Swansea failed to notice the 3 year old had gone missing until his mother Lisa Davies arrived and demanded to know why her young son, who has additional educational needs, had been locked outside.

The head teacher of the setting immediately issued an apology stating that the nursery has reviewed procedures to prevent similar incidents from occurring again in the future.

However, his parents are demanding to know how this was allowed to happen in the first place.

Miss Davies said: “I went to pick him up early, and I heard him shout when he saw me. I was utterly shocked. At the time I did not know how to process what had happened.

“They originally said he was on his own for no more than three minutes, but his father has since been to see CCTV and it was nearer 15 minutes.”

“They have been apologetic, but I was raging when I got home.”

“He has only been going to the nursery for three weeks, and I don’t know whether to uproot him and take him somewhere else. How could he be left on his own?”

Finnley’s dad, Lee Fuge, added: “I could not believe this was allowed to happen.”

“They say he was in a secure area with a fence around him, but it may have been secure enough to stop him getting out, but not if someone had seen him from the street and come to take him.”

“Or what if he had fallen, or hurt himself in some way?”

“It has driven me mad thinking about what might have happened to him.”

Occurring on a Monday morning, head teacher of the primary school, Lucy Saunders, stated: “We are extremely sorry that this has happened and we have apologised to the child’s parents.”

“We want to reassure parents that we have already reviewed our procedures to ensure that this cannot happen again.”

“The child was found playing outside the nursery classroom in a fenced-off area which is kept secure and did not appear distressed by what had happened. We’re continuing to look into this and we will make any changes deemed necessary to further improve our procedures.”

Despite the secure outdoor area, how could you not worry about further dangers the child may have encountered?

Would uprooting a child who has additional educational needs do more harm than good?